A cri­sis when it suits them

Democrats are in de­nial about the bor­der cri­sis

Since the fed­eral shut­down be­gan three weeks ago, the lib­eral me­dia have pre­sented dozens of Chicken Lit­tle sto­ries claim­ing that the sky is fall­ing. “Three dead in na­tional park sys­tem ac­ci­dents as shut­down wears on,” screamed a six-col­umn head­line in The Washington Post on Jan. 5.

“The deaths fol­low a de­ci­sion by Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials to leave the scenic — but some­times deadly — parks open even as the In­te­rior Depart­ment has halted most of its op­er­a­tions,” the ar­ti­cle said.

If you read on, you find this: “An av­er­age of six peo­ple die each week in the park sys­tem, [a parks spokesman] said, a fig­ure that in­cludes ac­ci­dents like drown­ings, falls, and mo­tor ve­hi­cle crashes, nat­u­ral causes such as heart at­tacks and sui­cides.”

So, fewer peo­ple have died than if the parks were fully open and staffed. The Post’s head­line, be­yond which many news con­sumers don’t go, shows why it’s im­por­tant to do so in our age of fake news.

The me­dia also keep flail­ing Mr. Trump over his de­mand for a wall, and the tragic deaths of two ill Gu­atemalan chil­dren in De­cem­ber who were among thou­sands of mi­grants who have been il­le­gally cross­ing the south­ern bor­der. In 2018, more than 400 peo­ple died while try­ing to cross, ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tional Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion’s Miss­ing Mi­grant Project.

If there’s fin­ger-point­ing, how about wav­ing some at Democrats? They’ve been erect­ing a gi­ant neon sign in Cen­tral Amer­ica that says, “Come on up, cross the U.S. bor­der il­le­gally, claim asy­lum and we’ll take care of you in­def­i­nitely. You can thank us by vot­ing early and of­ten. No ID needed.”

As Mr. Trump be­gan his ad­dress on Tues­day night out­lin­ing the bor­der cri­sis, The Washington Post on­line Fact-Check posted, “There is no new cri­sis at the bor­der” two min­utes af­ter he be­gan. Politico also posted as a “fact check” “not a cri­sis” dur­ing the speech.

Mean­while, a Post head­line on Thurs­day said, “Record num­ber of fam­i­lies ar­rested while cross­ing U.S. bor­der in De­cem­ber.”

De­cem­ber was the third straight month in which more than 60,000 peo­ple were de­tained, in­clud­ing 27,518 “fam­ily units,” ac­cord­ing to U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion. At least 50 bor­der crossers a day are be­ing hos­pi­tal­ized with a va­ri­ety of ill­nesses, in­clud­ing tu­ber­cu­lo­sis. Kevin K. McAleenan, com­mis­sioner of Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion, called the sit­u­a­tion “an un­prece­dented cri­sis” be­cause of the sharp rise in the num­ber of younger, sicker peo­ple.

Over­worked im­mi­gra­tion courts are jammed. They had a back­log of 760,000 cases be­fore the shut­down com­menced, ac­cord­ing to the Jus­tice Depart­ment.

In Texas alone, more than 250,000 crim­i­nal aliens were booked in lo­cal jails be­tween June 2011 and April 2018, ac­cord­ing to the Texas Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety. The 663,000 of­fenses, in­cluded 1,351 homi­cides, 7,156 sex­ual as­saults, 815 kid­nap­pings and 79,900 drug charges. Cri­sis? What cri­sis?

“In the last two years, ICE of­fi­cers made 266,000 ar­rests of aliens with crim­i­nal records,” Pres­i­dent Trump said in the ad­dress.

He was spot on, but The New York Times “fact check­ers” took is­sue with it, re­ports the Me­dia Re­search Cen­ter’s Tim Gra­ham, who called their re­port “half-baked”:

The Times did not dis­pute the fig­ure, but snarled, “it should be noted that these crim­i­nal con­vic­tions cov­ered a range of of­fenses, in­clud­ing many that were non­vi­o­lent.”

Mr. Gra­ham: “Trans­la­tion: Trump’s num­bers were cor­rect, but we don’t like them.”

In 2009 and 2010, Democrats foamed with ou­trage about the “health care cri­sis” be­fore con­coct­ing Oba­macare.

To­day, they and their me­dia al­lies deny there is any cri­sis at our bor­der, while por­tray­ing the fed­eral shut­down as a cri­sis on many fronts.

“Food stamps, hous­ing sub­si­dies and other ser­vices at risk as stand­off lingers,” The Post darkly warned on Jan. 10 amid other pieces pre­dict­ing doom. A front­page ar­ti­cle on Fri­day said fur­loughed fed­eral em­ploy­ees were sell­ing items on­line be­cause they were about to miss their first pay­check.

Fed­eral work­ers are, in­deed, caught in the stand­off, but it’s al­most cer­tain they will re­coup lost wages af­ter their time off. That rarely hap­pens in the pri­vate sec­tor.

The real pawns are poor Cen­tral Amer­i­cans who, as Mr. Trump noted, en­dure great danger and hard­ship to come to the United States af­ter be­ing told the U.S. bor­der is no longer rel­e­vant or en­force­able.

As the Novem­ber elec­tions showed, par­tic­u­larly in Cal­i­for­nia, where un­con­trolled im­mi­gra­tion has turned even Or­ange County blue, the po­lit­i­cal ben­e­fits of an open bor­der are just too at­trac­tive for Democrats to worry about the rest of the crises it is caus­ing.

This is not about their ha­tred of Mr. Trump, al­though that’s a fac­tor. It’s about en­sur­ing a steady flow of il­le­gal im­mi­grants to re­place the cur­rent Amer­i­can elec­torate and cre­ate a per­ma­nent so­cial­ist ma­jor­ity, with sex­ual an­ar­chy for all.